Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Lauren’s Saints of Dirty Faith, the third book in Alicia Valdes-Rodriguez’s Dirty Girls Social Club series, starts out with a bang and keeps moving. Valdes-Rodriguez knows how to interweave multiple plots in a way that keeps the reader turning the pages.

Lauren, fresh from a breakup with Jason Flynn, a Boston detective, is pushed into the subway tracks by a few Irish gangsters Flynn hired to get rid of her. But she lives. With the help of her friends, she flees Boston and heads to New Mexico, hoping to start over.

Rebecca, a wife, mother, and successful career woman, has grown apart from her sexy husband ever since she failed to first conceive, and then deliver through a surrogate, a perfect child. Her high-functioning autistic son fixates on sprinklers, unable to connect with those who love him most. To complicate matters, Rebecca discovers her father’s secret life, complete with half-siblings, whom he has been hiding for over thirty years, including a half-sister, Jennifer, who is infatuated with Rebecca’s husband.

Finally, Usnavys, a big, bold, colorful businesswoman, finds herself back where she started—in the ghetto where she grew up, without her husband, her children, or the money she has become attached to over the years once she loses her job, her house, her BMW, and her picture-perfect life.

How Valdes-Rodriguez manages to tell a thrilling tale of life and death adventure, heartbreaking family drama while documenting the very real lives of those caught in the grips of the Great Recession is what makes Lauren’s Saints of Dirty Faith the best of the Dirty Girls series.
… (mere)

I am almost finished with THE HUSBAND HABIT and wanted everyone to know it is a fabulous story told in a different voice and style than THE DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB. Like a good stew, THE HUSBAND HABIT simmers wonderfully from the first sentence and cooks up a great story full of food references and delightful word play, sensuous and intelligent, with rich characterizations throughout and a storyline anyone can relate to.

My only complaint is the jarring use of fragments. That's why I am giving the book 4 instead of 5 stars.… (mere)